Mobilizing Woman-Power Part 4

In each army district, the government appointed a woman as directress, and by order to town and provincial authorities made the Frauendienst part of local executive affairs.

Among the immediate duties laid upon the Frauendienst by the authorities was the task of registering all needy persons, of providing cheap eating places, opening workrooms, and setting up nurseries for children, especially for those who were motherless and those whose fathers had fallen at the front and whose mothers were in some gainful pursuit. With these duties went the administrative service of cooperating with the government in "keeping up an even supply of foodstuffs, and controlling the buying and selling of food."

Germany antic.i.p.ated as did no other belligerent the unemployment which would follow a declaration of war, and prepared to meet the condition. A great deal of army work, such as tent sewing, belts for cartridges, bread sacks, and sheets for hospitals, was made immediately available for the women thrown out of luxury trades. In the first month of the war the Frauendienst opened work-rooms in all great centers; machinery was installed by magic and through the six work-rooms in Berlin alone twenty-three thousand women were given paid employment in one week.

Such efforts could not, of course, absorb the surplus labor, for unemployment was very great. Eighty percent of the women's hat-makers and milliners were out of work, seventy-two percent of the workers in gla.s.s and fifty-eight percent in china. The Frauendienst investigated two hundred and fifty-five thousand needy cases, and in Berlin alone found sixty thousand women who had lost their employment. Charity had to render help. Here, again, it is an example of the alertness of the organization and its close connection with the government that the Berlin magistracy deputed to twenty-three Hilfscommissionen from the Frauendienst the work of giving advice and charity relief to the unemployed. Knitting rooms were opened, clothing depots, mending rooms, where donated clothing was repaired, and in one month fifty-six thousand orders for milk, five hundred thousand for bread, and three hundred thousand for meals were distributed for the city authorities.

The adjustment to war requirements went on more quickly in Germany than in any other country. Before a year had pa.s.sed the surplus hands had been absorbed, and a shortage of labor power was beginning to be felt.

And now opens the war drama set with the same scene everywhere. Women hurry forward to take up the burden laid down by men, and to a.s.sume the new occupations made necessary by the organization of the world for military conflict. To tell of Germany is merely to speak in bigger numbers. Women in munitions? Of course, well over the million mark.

Trolley conductors? Of course, six hundred in Berlin alone before the first Christmas. Women are making the fuses, fas.h.i.+oning the big sh.e.l.ls, and at the same heavy machines used by the men. That speaks volumes--the same heavy machines. Great Britain and France have in every case introduced lighter machinery for their women. But, whatever the conditions, in Germany the women are handling high explosives, sewing heavy saddlery, operating the heaviest drill machines. Women have been put on the "hardest jobs. .h.i.therto filled by men." In the German-Luxemburg Mining and Furnace Company at Differdingen, they are found doing work at the slag and blast furnaces which had always required men of great endurance. They work on the same s.h.i.+fts as the men, receive the same pay, but are not worked overtime "because they must go home and perform their domestic duties."

One feels the weight of the German system. Patient women shoulder double burdens. They always did.

In the Post and Telegraph department there is an army of fifty thousand women. The telephone service is entirely in their hands, and running more smoothly than formerly. Dr. Kathe Schirmacher declares comfortingly in the _Kriegsfrau_ that "one must not forget that these women know many important bits of information--and keep silent." Women have learned to keep a secret!

One hundred and eighty nurses, experts with the X-ray, were in the front line dressing stations in the early days of the war, and before a week of conflict had pa.s.sed women were in the Field Post, and Frau Reimer, organizer of official chauffeurs, was on the western line of attack.

Agriculture claims more women than any occupation in Germany. They were always on the farm, perhaps they are happier there now since they themselves are in command. It is said that "the peasants work in the boots and trousers of their husbands and ride in the saddle." War has liberated German women from the collar and put them on horseback!

But strangest and most unexpected of all is the professional and administrative use of women. The government has sent women architects and interior decorators to East Prussia to plan and carry through reconstruction work. Over a hundred--to be exact, one hundred and sixteen at last accounts--have taken the places of men in administrative departments connected with the railways. Many widows who have shown capacity have been put in government positions of importance formerly held by their husbands. Women have become farm managers, superintendents of dairy industries, and representatives of landed proprietors.

The disseminating of all instruction and information for women on war economies was delegated to the League of Women's Domestic Science Clubs.

The Berlin course was held in no less a place than the Abgeordnetenhaus, and the Herrenhaus opened its doors wide on Rural Women's Day when Agricultural Week was held at the capital.

When the full history of the war comes to be written, no doubt one reason for Germany's marvelous power to stand so long against the world will be found in her use of every brain and muscle of the nation. This has been for her no exclusive war. Her entire people to their last ounce of energy have been engaged.

And this supreme service on the part of German women seeks democratic expression. From them comes the clearest, bravest word that has reached us across the border. The most hopeful sign is this manifesto from the suffrage organizations to the government: "Up to the present Germany has stood in the lowest rank of nations as regards women's rights. In most civilized lands women already have been given a large share in public affairs. German women have been granted nothing except within the most insignificant limits. In New Zealand, Australia and most American States, and even before the war in Finland and Norway, they had been given political rights; to-day, Sweden, Russia and many other countries give them a full or limited franchise. The war has brought a full victory to the women of England, Canada, Russia and Denmark, and large concessions are within sight in France, Holland and Hungary.

"Among us Germans not only the national but even the commercial franchise is denied, and even a share in the industrial and commercial courts. In the demand for the democratization of German public life our legislators do not seem even to admit the existence of women.

"But during the war the cooperation of women in public life has unostentatiously grown from year to year until to-day the number of women engaged in various callings in Germany exceeds the number of men.

"The work they are doing includes all spheres of male activity; without them it would no longer be possible to support the economic life of the people. Women have done their full share in the work of the community.

"Does not this performance of duty involve the right to share in the building up and extension of the social order?

"The women protest against this lack of political rights, in virtue both of their work for the community and of their work as human beings. They demand political equality with men. They demand the direct, equal and secret franchise for all legislative bodies, full equality in the communes and in legal representation of their interests.

"This first joint p.r.o.nouncement on women's demands will be followed by others until the victory of our cause is won."

[Footnote 3: "Die Frauenvereine jeder Stadt verbinden sich fur die Dauer des Krieges zur Organization Nationaler Frauendienst die zu Berlin am 1ten August begrundet wurde."]

VI

WOMEN OVER THE TOP IN AMERICA

American women have begun to go over the top. They are going up the scaling-ladder and out into All Man's Land. Perhaps love of adventure tempts them, perhaps love of money, or a fine spirit of service, but whatever the propelling motive, we are seeing them make the venture.

There is nothing new in our day in a woman's being paid for her work--some of it. But she has never before been seen in America employed, for instance, as a section hand on a railway. The gangs are few and small as yet, but there the women are big and strong specimens of foreign birth. They "trim" the ballast and wield the heavy "tamping"

tool with zest. They certainly have muscles, and are tempted to use them vigorously at three dollars a day.

In the machine shops where more skill than strength is called for, the American element with its quick wits and deft fingers predominates.

Young women are working at the lathe with so much precision and accuracy that solicitude as to what would become of the world if all its men marched off to war is in a measure a.s.suaged. In the push and drive of the industrial world, women are handling dangerous chemicals in making flash lights, and T.N.T. for high explosive sh.e.l.ls. The American college girl is not as yet trans.m.u.ting her prowess of the athletic field into work on the anvil, as is the university woman in England, but she has demonstrated her manual strength and skill on the farm with plough and harrow.

Women and girls answer our call for messenger service, and their intelligence and courtesy are an improvement upon the manners of the young barbarians of the race. Women operate elevators, lifting us with safety to the seventh heaven, or plunging us with precision to the depths. There were those at first who refused to entrust their lives to such frail hands, and there are still some who look concerned when they see a woman at the lever; but on the whole the elevator "girl" has gained the confidence of her public, and has gained it by skill, not by feminine wiles, for even men won't shoot into s.p.a.ce with a woman at the helm whose sole equipment is charm. With need of less skill than the elevator operator, but more patience and tact in managing human nature, the woman conductor is getting her patrons into line. We are still a little embarra.s.sed in her presence. We try not to stare at the well-set-up woman in her sensible uniform, while she on her part tries to look unconscious, and with much dignity accomplishes the common aim much more successfully than do we. She is so attentive to her duties, so courteous, and, withal, so calm and serious that I hope she will abide with us longer than the "duration of the war."

In short, America is witnessing the beginning of a great industrial and social change, and even those who regard the situation as temporary cannot doubt that the experience will have important reactions. The development is more advanced than it was in Great Britain at a corresponding time, for even before the United States entered the conflict women were being recruited in war industries. They have opened up every line of service. There is not an occupation in which a woman is not found.

When men go a-warring, women go to work.

A distinguished general at the end of the Cuban War, enlarging upon the poet's idea of woman's weeping role in wartime, said in a public speech: "When the country called, women put guns in the hands of their soldier boys and bravely sent them away. After the good-byes were said there was nothing for these women to do but to go back and wait, wait, wait. The excitement of battle was not for them. It was simply a season of anxiety and heartrending inactivity." Now the fact is, when a great call to arms is sounded for the men of a nation, women enlist in the industrial army.

If women did indeed sit at home and weep, the enemy would soon conquer.

The dull census tells the thrilling story. Before our Civil War women were found in less than a hundred trades, at its close in over four hundred. The census of 1860 gives two hundred and eighty-five thousand women in gainful pursuits; that of 1870, one million, eight hundred and thirty-six thousand. Of the Transvaal at war, this story was told to me by an English officer. He led a small band of soldiers down into the Boer country, on the north from Rhodesia, as far as he dared. He "did not see a man," even boys as young as fifteen had joined the army. But at the post of economic duty stood the Boer woman; she was tending the herds and carrying on all the work of the farm. She was the base of supplies. That was why the British finally put her in a concentration camp. Her man could not be beaten with her at his back.

War compels women to work. That is one of its merits. Women are forced to use body and mind, they are not, cannot be idlers. Perhaps that is the reason military nations hold sway so long; their reign continues, not because they draw strength from the conquered nation, but because their women are roused to exertion. Active mothers ensure a virile race.

The peaceful nation, if its women fall victims to the luxury which rapidly increasing wealth brings, will decay. If there come no spiritual awakening, no sense of responsibility of service, then perhaps war alone can save it. The routing of idleness and ease by compulsory labor is the good counterbalancing some of the evil.

The rapidly increasing employment of women to-day, then, is the usual, and happy, accompaniment of war. But the development has its opponents, and that is nothing new, either. Let us look them over one by one. The most mischievous objector is the person, oftenest a woman, who says the war will be short, and fundamental changes, therefore, should not be made. This agreeable prophecy does not spring from a heartening belief in victory, but only from the procrastinating att.i.tude, "Why get ready?"

To prepare for anything less certain than death seems folly to many of the s.e.x, over-trained in patient waiting.

Then there is the official who constantly sees the seamy side of industrial life and who concludes--we can scarcely blame him--that "it would be well if women were excluded entirely from factory life." The bad condition of industrial surroundings bulks large in his mind, and the value of organized work to us mortals bulks small. We are all too inclined to forget that the need for work cannot be eliminated, but the unhealthy process in a dangerous trade can. Clean up the factory, rather than clean out the women, is a sound slogan.

And then comes the objector who is exercised as to the effect of paid work upon woman's charm. Solicitude on this score is often buried in a woman's heart. It was a woman, the owner of a large estate, who when proposing to employ women asked how many men she would have to hire in addition, "to dig, plough and do all the hard work." On learning that the college units do everything on a farm, she queried anxiously, "But how about their corsets?" To the explanation, "They don't wear any,"

came the regret, "What a pity to make themselves so unattractive!"

I have heard fear expressed, too, lest s.e.x attraction be lost through work on army hats, the machinery being noisy and the operative, if she talk, running the danger of acquiring a sharp, high voice. One could but wonder if most American women work on army hats.

Among the women actually employed, I have found without exception a fine spirit of service. So many of them have a friend or brother "over there," that backing up the boys makes a strong personal appeal. But some of the women who have left factory life behind are adopting an att.i.tude towards the present industrial situation as lacking in vision as in patriotism. Throughout a long discussion in which some of these women partic.i.p.ated I was able to follow and get their point of view. To them a woman acting as a messenger, an elevator operator, or a trolley conductor, was anathema, and the tempting of women into these employments seemed but the latest vicious trick of the capitalist. The conductor in her becoming uniform was most reprehensible, and her evident satisfaction in her job suggested to her critics that she merely was trying to play a melodramatic part "as a war hero." In any case, the conductor's occupation was one no woman should be in, "crowded and pushed about as she is." It was puzzling to know why it was regarded as right for a woman to pay five cents and be pushed, and unbecoming for another woman to be paid eighteen dollars and ninety cents a week and run the risk of a jolt when stepping outside her barrier.

But the ideals of yesterday fail to make their appeal. It is not the psychological moment to urge, on the ground of comfort, the woman's right to protection. The contrast between the trenches and the street car or factory is too striking. But it is, however, the exact moment to plead for better care of workers, both women and men, because their health and skill are as necessary in attaining the national aim as the soldiers' prowess and well-being. It is the time to advocate the protection of the worker from long hours, because the experience of Europe has proved that a greater and better output is achieved when a short day is strictly adhered to, when the weekly half-holiday is enjoyed, and Sunday rest respected. The United States is behind other great industrial countries in legal protection for the workers. War requirements may force us to see in the health of the worker the greatest of national a.s.sets. Meantime, whether approved or not, the American woman is going over the top. Four hundred and more are busy on aeroplanes at the Curtiss works. The manager of a munition shop where to-day but fifty women are employed, is putting up a dormitory to accommodate five hundred. An index of expectation! Five thousand are employed by the Remington Arms Company at Bridgeport. At the International Arms and Fuse Company at Bloomfield, New Jersey, two thousand, eight hundred are employed. The day I visited the place, in one of the largest shops women had only just been put on the work, but it was expected that in less than a month they would be found handling all of the twelve hundred machines under that one roof alone.

The skill of the women staggers one. After a week or two they master the operations on the "turret," gauging and routing machines. The best worker on the "facing" machine is a woman. She is a piece worker, as many of the women are, and is paid at the same rate as men. This woman earned, the day I saw her, five dollars and forty cents. She tossed about the fuse parts, and played with that machine, as I would with a baby. Perhaps it was in somewhat the same spirit--she seemed to love her toy.

Most of the testers and inspectors are women. They measure the parts step by step, and weigh the completed fuse, carrying off the palm for reliability. The manager put it, "for inspection the women are more conscientious than men. They don't measure or weigh just one piece, shoving along a half-dozen untouched and let it go at that. They test each." That did not surprise me, but I was not prepared to hear that the women do not have so many accidents as men, or break the machines so often. In explanation, the manager threw over an imaginary lever with vigor sufficient to shake the factory, "Men put their whole strength on, women are more gentle and patient."

Nor are the railways neglecting to fill up gaps in their working force with women. The Pennsylvania road, it is said, has recruited some seven hundred of them. In the Erie Railroad women are not only engaged as "work cla.s.sifiers" in the locomotive clerical department, but hardy Polish women are employed in the car repair shops. They move great wheels as if possessed of the strength of Hercules. And in the locomotive shops I found women working on drill-press machines with ease and skill. Just as I came up to one operator, she lifted an engine truck-box to the table and started drilling out the studs. She had been at the work only a month, and explained her skill by the information that she was Swedish, and had always worked with her husband in their auto-repair shop. All the other drill-press hands and the "shapers,"

too, were Americans whose husbands, old employees, were now "over there." Not one seemed to have any sense of the unusual; even the little blond check-clerk seated in her booth at the gates of the works with her bra.s.s discs about her had in a few months' time changed a revolution into an established custom. She and the discs seemed old friends. Women are adaptable.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Copyright by Underwood and Underwood_ The daily round in the Erie Railroad workshops.]